Fragaria virginiana Seeds | Virginia Strawberry

Virginia strawberry with white flowers, small scarlet fruit and leaves turning red — Virginia Strawberry (*Fragaria virginiana*): Rosaceae, meadows and open woods of North America.

LATIN NAME: Fragaria virginiana

COMMON NAME: Virginia Strawberry

Plant Profile

The Virginia strawberry is the scarlet wild strawberry of North American meadows, and one of the two parents of the garden strawberry. It grows from the prairies of the Midwest to the Atlantic coast and from Canada to Florida, in open grassland, roadsides, woodland edges and abandoned fields, spreading by runners over ground that has been disturbed. The plant makes a low rosette of trifoliate leaves that turn wine-red in autumn, one of the best autumn colours of any herbaceous plant, and carries white flowers in late spring. The fruit is small, rounder and more seedy than the European wild strawberry, with a sharp, vivid flavour and a scarlet colour that goes right through the flesh. It was taken to Europe in the seventeenth century, where it met a Chilean species and gave rise to the modern cultivated strawberry.

Science & Biotechnology

Fragaria virginiana is an octoploid, with 56 chromosomes, and it is one of the two wild species whose genomes combined to produce Fragaria x ananassa, the garden strawberry, after both were brought into European gardens in the 1700s. The octoploid genome is a complex of four subgenomes, and modern sequencing has shown that one of them comes from a diploid ancestor close to F. vesca, which is why the diploid is such a useful model for the crop. The species is dioecious in some populations and hermaphrodite in others, and the wild plants vary widely in fruit size, colour and season. Its value to breeders has been hardiness, disease resistance and flavour: many older cultivars carry F. virginiana blood, and breeding programmes still cross it in for cold tolerance and for the aromatic compounds that the large-fruited types have lost. It is also one of the most important wild fruits for birds and small mammals in eastern North America.

Uses & Benefits

The fruit is gathered in quantity in the eastern states, and it is used for jam, preserves and pies, where its sharpness and colour are an advantage over the blandness of the supermarket crop. It is grown in gardens as a ground cover and as an ornamental for its autumn foliage, which turns crimson in October and holds colour for weeks. The leaves are used for tea, and the root has a place in Native American medicine as a digestive. In a forest garden it is useful because it tolerates more shade and drought than the cultivated strawberry, and it spreads into ground that would otherwise be bare. It is also planted as a nurse crop on banks and in orchards. Commercially it matters mostly as a parent, and its genes are in most of the strawberries sold today.

Growing from Seed

Sow seed on the surface in late winter at 18 to 20 degrees, after four weeks of cold, moist stratification; germination is slow and uneven. Press the seed into the compost without covering it, since light helps. Prick out the seedlings into small pots and grow them in a shaded frame until autumn. Plant out 30 cm apart in sun or light shade, in soil improved with compost, and water through the first summer. The plant spreads quickly by runners, so give it room or cut the runners off to keep it in a clump. Mulch with straw to keep fruit clean and to hold moisture. Renovate the bed every third year by cutting back the old leaves and thinning the plants, and expect the best crop in the second and third years.

Our Take

The scarlet parent of the garden strawberry, with sharp fruit and crimson autumn leaves. Tough, generous, and worth a place on a bank.

Herb Seeds